The Five Worst Interview Questions Ever

The Five All Time Worst Interview Questions

Unfortunately, there are all too many bad interview questions that get asked all too frequently.  Here’s my list of questions that should be retired to their own special Hall of Shame.

1. Tell me about yourself.  Here’s how any candidate will interpret this question:  ‘I didn’t have time to read your resume or if I did it wasn’t interesting enough to remember so why don’t you fill me in so I have a clue what we’re talking about.’  It’s also so vague, it leaves many candidates wondering if you’re the type of manager who expects people to read your mind.  If you must ask some form of this, at least make the effort to look professional by saying something like, “I’ve had the opportunity to review your resume, but I often find it helpful to hear people explain their own background.  Why don’t you give me a short description of your career.”
2. Where do you see yourself in five years?  Seriously? Most of us aren’t even sure where we’ll be in a month.  Also, it’s an expected question. Therefore (again) the answer is likely to be rehearsed, polished, and practically meaningless.
3. Tell me your strengths and weaknesses. Easily my least favorite question of all. First of all, everyone expects this question. If the candidate can’t answer this smoothly, they struggle with other questions so you can’t really use this to weed people out. Everyone knows to make the strength something generic enough not to be threatening, and to make the weakness something you’ve worked hard to overcome (and that wouldn’t really matter if you still suffer from—like working too hard). If you ask this question, you deserve the hogwash you’re about to be fed.
4. Do you like working in a team environment? “Nope. Pretty much hate people. Hoping for a job in which I can stare at my computer all day long and growl at anyone who asks for help or information. I figure if I do this well enough, I’ll become the next Dilbert character.” If you want to know how they will work in a team, then that’s what you need to ask.  For example, “Can you tell me about a time when you worked as part of a team to solve a big problem?” or “What role do you find yourself filling in a team setting? Is this a role you’re comfortable in? Can you give me an example of a time when you worked in a team in this kind of role?”
5. Do you work well under pressure? What do you expect someone to say? “Er, not really.”? “Can I call use a lifeline?” “No, but I bring my mom to work every day and she’s great with pressure.” There is only one possible answer to this question, so why bother asking? The days of the high pressure interviews are gone with other unfortunate trends of the 1980s, so if you want to know how the person will respond to a high pressure situation, ask for an example of when they worked under pressure in the past.  Of try something like, “Here at XYZ Diamond Cutters, we understand that cutting extremely large gemstones is an art that involves a lot of stress. What do you do to balance your environment so the stress does not become overwhelming?”

What are the worst interview questions you’ve ever heard?

To learn more about Judi Cogen and J Grace Consulting, please visit www.JGraceConsulting.net or read some of her articles on www.EzineArticles.com. You can also follow Judi on Twitter www.twitter.com/JudiCogen where you can never be quite sure what she’ll be talking about.

Accountability (Put Your Oxygen Mask on First Before Helping Your Children with Theirs)

Accountability: it sounds so simple:  Do what you say you’re going to do.  And we will generally do whatever it takes to “get it done” for our clients.

• Need to stay up until 2am getting a proposal ready that you promised to have first thing in the morning?  No problem.
• Have to spend an extra hour learning a new computer trick to solve a problem?  Consider it done.
• Set the alarm half an hour earlier in order to meet with a new prospect at her convenience?  Of course!

But when it comes to holding ourselves accountable to complete tasks necessary for growing our own business, we’re usually not quite as dedicated to the cause.  We allow things that we know are important to our business to drift down the “to do” list.  It’s not that we don’t think they are important—we all know they are.  But client fires have to come first.  Then there are family obligations.  And staying current in our industry.  And checking email.  And balancing the checkbook.  And, and, and.  The list of things for a small business owner to do is endless.

Have you ever made an agreement with a colleague that you’ll each get something done before the next time you meet?  This is a great attempt at accountability.  All too often however we go to that meeting with a sheepish grin saying, “I was going to try to cram the task in today before I came to meet you…”  The task still looms, waiting to be done, you feel mildly guilty about not having gotten to it, and the real damage is that your business didn’t receive the attention it deserves.

Take a lesson from the airline industry.  At the beginning of every flight, the attendant demonstrates the seat belt operation and then goes on to explain about the oxygen bags.  No matter what the exact spiel, the gist of the message is put on your own mask before attending to your child.  For those of us who are parents, this feels somewhat counter intuitive, right?  All our parenting genes scream, “take care of the kids—I’ll tough it out for a few minutes!”  Of course, the airlines are right—we are in a much better position to help our children when we are breathing calmly and safely.

So too are you in a better position to help your clients and your family when your business is breathing calmly and safely.  There are things that you have to do to be successful that may not be fun or easy for you, but are no less the oxygen that will allow your business to continue to breathe. 

Find an accountability system that works for you and stick to it no matter what.

Judi Cogen is a principal at J Grace Consulting http://jgraceconsulting.net/. You can follow her on twitter at http://twitter.com/JudiCogenor email her at Judi@JGraceConsulting.net.

Avoid the Saboteurs

As you proceed in your professional (and personal) life, you will encounter not only “agree-ers” but also saboteurs.  It is important to understand that not all feedback and advice you are given is worth following verbatim.

There are all types of saboteurs.  Some are the kind you might expect—either people who are always negative or those who hold so tightly to the status quo that they have no ability to examine a new thought without their head exploding.  Some saboteurs sneak up in disguise.  This type of person seems to be supportive (in fact, they would swear they are being supportive under the most rigorous of lie detector tests). Yet in some way, they subvert your efforts. These saboteurs are very hard to see coming and therefore are very hard to defend against.  They can also be difficult to distinguish from someone who is genuinely supportive but is a solid voice of reason and reality for you. 

Why don’t saboteurs want us to succeed?

There are many reasons someone may not want us to succeed.  One may be jealousy.  If someone is depressed and dejected by his own career path he may be only able to rationalize his situation by ensuring that yours is worse.  Remember that pattern from high school?  Cool people (who often weren’t all that cool) kept their status not because they were so great, but because they managed to put other people down convincingly.  Any comments these people make are not in your best interest—they are in the speaker’s best interest.  So why should you listen?

Another reason people might undermine your progress is because they have a very negative view of the world.  A surprising percent of the population believes the world is a negative place, someone is always “out to get them,” every man for himself, etc.  (It is worth noting that the vast majority of these people do not believe they see the world that way.  They simply see the world clearly for what it is without rose colored glasses.)  Their comments to you simply reflect the world as they see it.  So rather than trying to undermine you, they are simply giving you their best advice.  Unfortunately, their advice is a reflection of their perceptions—which may not be useful to you if you have a different world view.  Again, listening to these people is like listening to someone with a radically different political view:  if you understand where they are coming from and the underpinnings of their belief system, you might have a very interesting conversation.  If you start to believe them, however, you are starting to change your perspective.  Be sure that’s what you intend before you switch political parties!

Sometimes people are trying—with all their good heart and best intentions—to help.  They desperately do not want to see you fail or make a mistake.  We need these wonderful people in our lives.  The problem is when they do not see your vision or when they don’t have enough information to truly advise you.  Jake wanted to open a flower shop after he lost his job.   Owning a flower shop had been Jake’s lifelong dream and he saw this as a wonderful opportunity to make it a reality.  He knew that his severance was enough to get the business going and sustain the family for a few months. Jake’s wife, Melinda, was a stay at home mom.  Jake’s idea terrified her.  While she wanted to be supportive of his dream, she knew that lots of businesses were failing.  Her father had owned a small business and she knew how hard he had worked.  She didn’t know what would happen to them and their two boys if Jake’s flower shop didn’t bring in enough money to cover their expenses.  She believed the severance wasn’t enough to cover the start up period.  Melinda didn’t want to tread on Jake’s dream, but she didn’t want to see him make a mistake that would be difficult to recover from.

It is difficult to deal with general acquaintances undermining our confidence.  As Jake went to networking events, he often ran into mixed reactions.  “You? A flower shop?” was the most common reaction from guys he played weekend football with.  Other people felt compelled to comment on the industry—whether they knew anything about it or not.  Jake told me me about one meeting he’d gone to.  “It was amazing—everyone I met turned out to be an ‘expert’ on something.  And they all had bad news.  This one told me the economy was terrible—as if I can’t read a newspaper.  That one had a friend who worked in the flower business in a different city 16 years ago and had a bad experience.  The next one heard that people in the wedding business are struggling.  Then someone told me that it’s impossible to get a business loan these days.  It went on and on!  By half way through the meeting I wanted to run screaming from the room!”

The fact is Jake’s experience is an all too common one.  People—sometimes complete strangers—feel the need to comment on your plans.   Unfortunately, more often than not, their comments are neither helpful nor positive.  Of course Jake wanted to run screaming from the room! 

 The trick is to balance finding people who can help you evaluate your ideas in an objective, supportive light and listen hard to what they tell you, while moving past the noise of saboteurs.

Judi Cogen is a principal at J Grace Consulting http://JGraceConsulting.net. You can follow her on twitter at http://twitter.com/JudiCogenor email her at Judi@JGraceConsulting.net.